Sri Lanka beats the Bangladeshi side to preserve their campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27

The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka secured four wickets in the last innings segment to achieve a thrilling victory over Bangladesh and keep their faint hopes of making it for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Pursuing a below-par total of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh wanted nine additional runs from the last six bowls.

Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three crucial wickets in four bowls and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to secure a exciting win for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the competition after three defeats and two no-results against the Australian team and the Kiwi side – elevates them tied on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who face each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, suffered a fifth successive loss since securing victory in their initial game against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.

While Bangladesh got off to the perfect start, with Marufa Akter striking with the opening bowl of the encounter to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a subpar fielding effort.

They provided lifelines to Perera, who was dropped on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to capitalise, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya Khan, Hasini Perera forced the opposition regret it.

She registered a maiden international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's removal in the 34th over causing a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 all out.

While batting second, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted the opposition to 23 for one in a disappointing opening overs and they were subsequently reduced to 44-3.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty rebuilt their score, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket before the batter withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage the chasing team approaching the last two innings segments, with merely 12 runs necessary.

Nevertheless, Sugandika Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and allowed only three runs before the captain's decisive intervention, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team seized the triumph at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a contest of nerves. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a handful of fellow players as she set herself to bowl the final over, kept her nerve. The opposition could not.

There will be plenty of doubts about Bangladesh's batting display. They could easily have been chasing around 270-280 with Sri Lanka looking comfortable on 159 with four wickets down in the 30th over, but in contrast the target was significantly less.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little aggression from the start, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, experiencing a top-order collapse, and eventually leaving themselves excessive to do.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting lineup, if they had seized their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run objective would have been substantially smaller.

It took them three tries to terminate the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to take a challenging opportunity behind the stumps to send back Perera on 23 before the captain was spared from a caught and bowled chance opportunity against Rabeya.

Perera was dropped again on 55 runs and 63, the last attempt going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with partners falling beside her.

Later in the batting effort, there was also a stumping chance missed and a run-out opportunity lost, even though the run-out chance was a somewhat regrettable, with Rubya Haider substituting with the gloves due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a one-off. They've missed 14 opportunities from a available 27 chances at this competition and display the lowest catch efficiency (less than 50%) of the eight teams.

They are a side who are overall moving in the right direction – they are playing in only their second ODI World Cup after all – but substandard fielding standards is a glaring issue which needs attention.